- Alberto Contador was coming down with something at the finish of the Tour, and states that he "was no longer the strongest rider on the team." We also learned today that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has opened an investigation against Contador related to his alleged involvement with the Operation Puerto affair. This overturns the UCI's earlier decision to acquit Contador of any involvement in the case.
- Floyd Landis will be riding in the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race this weekend. Lance was scheduled to appear, but at this point seems to have backed out. Floyd will have to settle for racing against Lance's coach, who had been training to compete against him at the race.
- Another nail in the coffin for the Astana team: Craft, their apparel sponsor has cancelled their contract with the troubled team. This follows an announcement last week that their bicycle sponsor BMC dropped them. Vinokourov continues to claim innocence.
- The up and coming Slipstream Sports/Chipotle team has added Magnus Backstedt to their squad. He joins David Millar, Dave Zabriskie, Christian Vandevelde, Julian Dean and Danny Pate in what is looking to be a very strong team. The Slipstream team is being built around a very strong anti-doping environment. They are hoping for wild-card invitations to the 2008 Paris-Roubaix and Tour de France with the eventual goal of securing a Pro Tour license in 2009.
- German team T-Mobile heads into this weekend's Deustchland Tour unsure of continued sponsorship. There is a press conference scheduled for August 9th at which it is expected T-Mobile will announce whether they will keep supporting the team.
I just received a number of Eurobike Exhibition updates from Velonews.com These are dated throughout the exhibition. August 31 : Giant rolls out refinements to their Maestro line of suspension bikes Ridley introduces an entry-level carbon fiber cyclocross bike Only cosmetic changes for Scott's road bikes, but new mountain and cyclocross bikes A new mountain/cyclocross pedal from Look New pedals, headsets, cranks and wheels from Crank Brothers A redesign of RockShox's SID fork for it's 10th anniversary September 1 : New clinchers from Lightweight A new line of cycling shorts and bibs from Assos Super light Nano Gram Zero pedals from Speedplay A new range of suspension forks from Maverick A little more about Selle Italia's new saddles with Troy Lee as well as a new Team Edition Flite model New white bars, stems and seatposts from FSA. Also, new compact shapes in the Plasma bar/stem combo and the K-Wing carbon bar, a new crankset, a K-Force tubular wheelset and an integra...